So the audition was a bit mixed (kept reminding myself that almost nobody else had 100% of any individual phrase, either), but overall a complete blast — especially loved the partnering improv.
Also, I think my legs are going to fall off.
Monthly Archives: August 2016
Some Days It’s Hard
Recently I got a really exceptionally nice compliment from Ms. B — not on my musicality or my technique, but on my work ethic.
That meant a lot to me. In fact, it meant more than I really know how to express, because until recently I’ve really doubted my own work ethic.
I’ve always been one of those people who’s great at hyper-focusing on topics of interest (okay, okay, obsessions): thus, when I was around 12 or 13, and completely obsessed with dogs, I basically memorized the AKC breed standard. No, seriously, like the whole thing, all 127 or however-many fully-recognized breeds there were at that particular moment in AKC history(1), including the sub-types within breeds.
(1)In case you’re wondering, I don’t remember them all anywhere near as well now — or, well, they’re apparently still in there somewhere, because every now and then one or more will just pop out (usually at the worst possible moment to be nerdsplaining on and on about the finer points of pedigree dog conformation -_-), but my recall of them is rusty (heh heh … obedience training pun, anyone?).
Ditto standards for various horse breeds and equestrian disciplines; I’d been busily internalizing those since I learned to read.
I guess that’s better than being completely unable to focus on anything that relates to the real world in any way, but it has its limits. I haven’t been great at taking that drive and putting it to work in places where it’s actually, like, useful. Or finishing things in general.
In short, I’m great at buckling down and working hard when I’m into it, but maybe not always so much when I’m not.
And that’s why Ms. B’s words meant so much to me — because as much as I love dancing, as much as I love ballet, it is work, and there are times that it feels like work.
Those are the days that I remind myself that I have Goals and Dreams, etc., and I get out of bed anyway, and I go to class anyway, and I work hard anyway, even if the last thing I feel like doing is another effing rond-de-jambe, and didn’t we already do fondu?
And it’s touching to know that teachers whose knowledge and guidance and opinion I value so highly see that.
So, anyway, today was one of those days that it was hard. Like, seriously: I whacked my ankle on something last night fumbling my way to bed, and it promptly developed a little puffy spot, so when I woke up part of me — okay, a whole lot of me — vaguely hoped it would be really sore so I would have an excuse to take an unsanctioned rest day.
Basically me this morning. (Thanks, Cheezburger.com)
It wasn’t, so I got up and I went to class.
And I say this because I think so often those of us in the weird, weird waters somewhere between legit amateur and semi-professional dance probably all feel like that on occasion, but also probably don’t feel like we can admit it.
Like, once you cross that threshold beyond which you’re legitimately a professional (or even a legit semi-professional) dancer — in short, once it’s a job — I think it’s probably easier to acknowledge that sometimes it feels like a job.
Complaining about our jobs is, after all, an essential part of the American Way (and probably also part of the Way in a lot of other places). No matter how great your job is, there are going to be times that you’d rather be doing something else (like sleeping).
When you’re only sort of beginning to entertain the hope that something you really, really love might also turn out to be something you could do even as a kinda-sorta job, it’s much harder to admit that there are days you just don’t freaking well feel like it.
But, here’s the thing: just like courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the choice to forge on even in the face of fear, discipline isn’t the absence of days you feel a bit (okay, a lot) less motivated — it’s the ability to keep sight of that long-term motivation on the far horizon, so even when your immediate motivation flags, the long-term motivation drags you forward.
By the scruff of your neck.
Kicking and screaming the whole way, if necessary, because your long-term motivator isn’t going to take that kind of attitude from you, mister, and don’t make it turn this car around.
So, that was this morning for me. I hit snooze three times, stared at the ceiling in the vain hope of an injury both mild enough to be temporary and serious enough to warrant a day off, realized one wasn’t forthcoming, then poured myself into some clothing, chugged some caffeinated liquid and a protein bar, and hauled my butt to class.
And, sure, I was a little tired and a little sore and it took me a little longer than usual to get my body and brain out of first gear, but by the time we’d made it through the first round of rond de jambes I was glad I was there, if only because I was receiving useful corrections.
By the time we got to terre-a-terre, I had really basically forgotten that I was supposed to be having an unmotivated morning, and that less than two hours earlier I’d been lying in bed rooting for a mild injury.
Dancing is its own reward. Every second I spend in the studio is a gift; especially so because I have phenomenal instructors who take the time to really work on me.
Sometimes, though, getting to that reward is tougher than it is at other times. Some days it’s hard.
So, basically, I guess what I’m saying is this: there are going to be days that you just don’t freaking well feel like it, and you’re going to go ahead and go to class anyway, or go to rehearsal, or go perform.
Instead of beating yourself up for the not feeling like it part, celebrate the immense effort that it takes on those days to get up and do it anyway. Those are the days that you have already won just by showing up.
Aaaaaand, now I totally sound like some kind of After School Special, so I’m going to shut up before I make myself queasy 🙂
Audition-Day Hijinks!
In an effort to keep myself from sitting at home and obsessing about today’s audition, I decided to haul my hiney out of bed and go to acro class.
And this goofiness happened 😀
It started out as graceful half-highs with port de bras, then turned into the Creation of Adam, then turned into two guys going PULL MY FINGER!!!
Top, L-R: Jesse, Me
Bottom, L-R: Starr, Denis
Totally worth it. Hanging out with my acro peeps always puts me in a great frame of mind.
Now I only have an hour to obsess before I can go check in and warm up. Maybe I should take myself out for lunch…
Advanced Class: Don’t Leave Your Body Behind
Today’s class was pretty good.
EF taught, which meant long and complicated combinations at barre, some of which were VERY fast.
After we had all sort of traded a moue of despair after flailing our way through something that I’ll call a degagé combination (with the understanding that it was SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT), he pointed out to us that we shouldn’t feel disheartened and give up mid-combo if we’re not fast enough yet.
Even if we flail through and don’t quite make it, even if the combination is so freaking fast that 75% of the advanced class can’t actually get their feet either to point fully or to relax fully, by trying, we’re developing the strength and the speed that will eventually allow us to execute these insanely-fast combinations correctly.
Us at barre today(1, by PhantomMoon, via Pinterest).
I was awfully glad to hear that, because that’s exactly what I keep telling myself: even if you’re just flailing away like a wind-sock, keep going, because it is through flailing that we reach transcendence.
Or something like that.
Even if you’re just flailing away like a wind-sock, keep going, because it is through flailing that we reach transcendence.
Or something like that.
(I felt like that could use some fancy formatting.)
This is how EF teachers, and one of the reasons that I lurve his classes(2). As I have probably mentioned before, he teaches to the most advanced dancer in the room (in this case: a home-town boy on a brief vacation from American freaking Ballet Theater, apparently) and allows everyone else to rise to that level.
Curiously, it generally works.
Anyway, adagio went well, once I stopped being a spaz and forgetting to actually use the muscles that make my supporting leg, like, support me (yeah, totally fumbled in a tour lent today … but I jumped right back into it and fixed it on the second side).
Turns and terre-a-terre also went well: we got music from Swan Lake today, and my insides went SQUEEE! because I ❤ Swan Lake so hard. My outside, on the other hand, went, “I’m not sure I have this! I’m still not sure I have this! Oh, wait — I’ve got this!”
Basically, I was having some trouble remembering where this one failli went, and also trouble remembering that my new dancing policy is supposed to be:
Look like you know what you’re doing.
…Even when you don’t.
Which, this week, has been frequently.
Anyway. Petit allegro was a moderate disaster, but only because for some reason on the first pass my brain couldn’t contain the combination, and on the second pass my body kept executing the incorrect version.
It began:
assemblé
jeté
assemblé
jeté
and then made with the glissades, but I somehow thought it began with glissade – jeté and thus kept doing it backwards and getting horribly lost.
EF tried to sort me, but my legs refused to comply until the very. last. repeat. Thus, I wound up working it alone, as everyone packed up.
EF called me over and gave me a note on my brush-jumps (the ones like jeté, assemblé, and so forth). I’ve been leaving my body behind, which has been forcing me to make extra weight-changes in petit allegro and putting me behind the count.
Evidently, my jumps aren’t actually slow anymore (EF said they’re actually quicker than a lot of my classmates’); it’s the extra weight-changes doing me in at this point.
So in addition to continuing to work on solidifying my supporting leg, this week I’ll be concentrating on bringing my body with me when I jump (something I need to think about in general, really; I do this on grand jeté and saut de chat as well).
Anyway, he spent several minutes working with me in on this, and (of course) I thanked him profusely. He takes a lot of time with me: fixing my arm at barre (which needs doing with alarming frequency; it’s better than it was, but it still likes to drift too far back and lose its shape and so forth), tweaking my jumps and turns, and so forth. I really appreciate that, as a great deal of the ground I’ve gained has been the direct result of these fine-point corrections from my instructors.
It’s also nice to know that I’m not invisible in a gigantic advanced class — there were a billion of us today (even adagio required two groups).
After, I went to juggling class, in which I managed a new-record-for-me 27 cascades, then worked my choreography a bit in Open Fly. I think I’ve solved the last of the timing problems (added a sissone to arabesque; not 100% sure it works with the music).
And now I’m at home, writing this, contemplating lunch, and preparing to undertake a cleaning binge as a way to keep myself from just obsessing about tomorrow’s audition.
Notes, References, and Asides
Sadly, I can’t find a proper source for this; if it’s from etsy, I want one!OMG I FOUND IT!- Sadly, after next Saturday, we won’t have him again for a while, because the regular season and so forth take off again next week, and he has So Many Responsibilities.
Thursday Class: You Know What They Say About A Guy With Big Knees(1)…
I’m sure the I’ve mentioned my gigantor knees before.
They are at once the scourge of my balletic existence and evidence of my best asset as a dancer. I’ve got huge knees because I’ve got huge thighs, and I’ve got huge thighs because I can fly (or, well, I can fly because I’ve got huge thighs, but it sounded better the other way).
Anyway, in his ongoing and exhaustive tune-up of my technique, Company B took me to task about sus-sous last night. I’ve been working on approaching it differently, but I still hadn’t really been getting my feet tight. I still kind of thought I couldn’t — and then CoB called me out on it, and suddenly my legs figured out how to do it(2).
It’s amazing what being in a tiny class with an instructor who you admire rather ardently can do for you (true story, though: he keeps having to correct my port de bras avant at barre because I keep looking at the wall instead of turning my head towards the outside outside arm — I get kinda shy around him sometimes).
After class, I took a moment to ask him about my issues with maintaining my turnout. I showed him where it is (basically a legit 180 in first with a solid knees-over-toes plié; he remarked, “That’s really good!”) and explained the difficulty I’ve been having — I tend to lose it in fifth because my knees get in the way(3).
Be asked me to show show him my fifth, then asked if I could bring my front foot back (to nestle fully against the back foot) if I plié-ed. It took me a minute to figure out what he was asking, but I was in fact quite able to do so. Once stretched, though, I felt like I using a ton of muscle just to stay there once I pulled my legs up straight.
Turns out he has the same problem: big knees, muscular thighs (unsurprisingly, we’re both jumpers). He suggested that I soften my knees just a hair in fifth (and leave them that way) and noted that he can’t get his quite straight in a tight fifth, either.
So, basically, it’s not a question of strength or inadequate turnout; it’s just the cost of being a dancer with really well-developed thighs. I’ll take that.
I’ll take that.
He also suggested that I really focus on getting a tight sus-sous position in my tours and that I play around with when to change my feet. Right now, I think I’m changing at the end, which is what works for CoB — but, honestly, I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’ve never thought about it before; it didn’t occur to me to do so.
Truth be told, I have had almost no instruction in tours. I figured out how to do them as a little kid and then it was, like, since I knew how how to do them well enough, nobody felt it necessary to explain them to me until recently (Jake in Lexington and now CoB). I should probably mention that to CoB.
My first teacher was quite good, but a discrete men’s class wasn’t an option; there weren’t enough boys in the school. The same challenge persists in my current dance life. Basically, I’ve more or or less acquired most of the bits of proper men’s technique that I have by a process involving observation, reading, and osmosis. Excepting variations in Lexington, I have literally never been in a proper men’s class in ballet (except once, but accident, on a day when no ladies turned up).
My turns were mostly good last night, as they often are in CoB’s class. I should keep that in mind, because it’s direct evidence of the fact that the difficulty I have with inconsistent turns is mostly a question of psychology. CoB is an exceptionally good instructor for me in part because he relaxes me. Since I tend to attack life with the intensity dialed up to 11 all the time, this is a Very Good Thing.
Anyway, for some reason, I dreamed about tour-jetés all night, which is weird, since I didn’t do any yesterday.
- Neither do I, but what they should say is is that he should soften his knees in fifth.
- EF produced a a similar change in my attitude arrière a couple weeks ago: I was like, “Welp, guess this is about right,” and he was like, “I KNOW YOU CAN GET THAT KNEE HIGHER SO GET IT HIGHER” and I was like, O____O’ *cranks working leg into impossibly-high attitude*
- Isn’t there a song about this? Oh, wait, no — it’s words, not knees. Right.
Initial Review:WearMoi Dance Belt
I’m an idiot, and didn’t keep the packaging for the WearMoi belt that I picked up on Wednesday. That’s a shame, because it makes it hard to conclusively recommend the right model (it’s definitely a thong-back in the unfortunately-named “nude” colorway with a 3″ waistband).
I can at least say it’s one of the newer-style models, that it really kinda blows my old Capezio warhorses out of the water*, and that it’s a close contender with the Body Wrappers models.
*While it will keep one’s eggs unscrambled, however, I am sadly forced to admit that it will not keep one’s metaphors unmixed. So if you want metaphors as clear as a wide blue window and pure as driven angels’ kisses, perhaps I am not the ideal source.
Design
In design, the WM belt most closely resembles the BodyWrappers M006/M007: pouch affixed below a solid elastic waistband. The pouch is better on the BW models, but the waistband on the WM is … well, plush. It has that sort of fuzzy interior surface like the waistbands on some kinds of underpants.
The WM belts available at Ye Olde Local Dance Shoppe all have 3″ waistbands, but WM’s website allows for customization of the width (perhaps only if you live in Europe or the UK, though: Hi, Yorksranter!), offering 1″, 2″, and 3″ options (Will dance belts ever go metric? Who knows?).
However, after a few hours, the real test of a dance belt’s comfort isn’t so much whether you can handle the waistband, but whether or not the thong is actively sawing you in half.
This is where the WM, like the BW M006 and M007, excels.
One of the chief problems with Capezio’s N5930 is that, when you take a break and sit down for a minute, you quickly realize that the thong is basically a steel** cable wrapped in cotton, soaked in brine, and crammed right up against your tailbone.
**Okay, so it’s not really steel, but it certainly feels like it at times.
That’s about as comfortable as it sounds, and frequently leads to adjustments, which give way to more adjustments when you have to get back in the studio.
Let me tell you from experience: there is nothing as fun as realizing too late that you need to adjust your dance belt and desperately trying to figure out how to do it on the down-low in front of like 40 girls. (Good times, good times.)
The WM and the two BW models share a feature that prevents this particular cascade of humiliation: a wide, flat fabric thong with bound edges.
The BW models have a slight edge in this regard, as far as I’m concerned: the bindings are super-smooth, and the fabric wicks sweat a little better and dries a little faster than the WM’s (however, the BW pouch dries more slowly). I’ve also had one experience of the WM’s thong rolling itself into a cable as I got dressed, but that A) may be because my WM dance belt is slightly bigger than it could be and B) was easily fixed.
Most importantly, neither of them is uncomfortable during breaks: both hold up well to ridiculous schedules like mine that basically involve wearing your dance belt all freaking day because there’s no point in taking it off for like two hours in the middle.
The BW pouch is absolutely the best in terms of modesty and, in my opinion, comfort (it appears to be made from pillows and the happy dreams of adorable kittens or something), so that’s a point in BW’s favor.
That said, the BW pouch also takes foreeeeeeeevar to air-dry when you hand-wash it and a comparably long time to dry when you’ve been sweating your brains out in it for three hours or what have you.
WM’s pouch isn’t quite as modesty-enhanced or silky-sleek, but it does dry more quickly, so point to side WM there. It’s also quite comfortable; the fabric has a nice hand, and the center seam (presumably there more for support than for anything) doesn’t turn into a tourniquet halfway through class.
One last bit on design: WM’s pouch is slightly narrower than BW’s. For me, this is great; I’m not very wide between the hipbones, nor am I, um, (ab.so.freaking.lutely NSFW AT ALL EVER) Rudolf Nureyev (/ab.so.freaking.lutely NSFW AT ALL EVER) or a ridonculous pr0n star, so to speak. However, BW’s pouch might be a better option for some.
Fit
Here’s the part where I make with the measurements, which I guess I should have actually done before I ordered all my new dance kit yesterday, because holy hairballs, I have shrunk (as you do).
Here’s my current stats (conversions are rounded to the nearest whole unit for simplicity’s sake, except pounds to stone, because the difference is too big):
Waist: 28″/71cm***
Biggest part of my tuchas (right around the gluteus medius): 37″/94cm***
Inseam: 32″/81cm
Height: 68″(5’8″)/173cm
Weight: 149 pounds/68kg/10.6 stone
***This ratio is why it is so freaking hard for me to find trousers that fit right.
I purchased a Large.
It turns out that I split the difference between Large and Medium in BW’s sizes. My waist measurement falls squarely into the Medium camp and my hip/tuchas measurement falls squarely into the Large camp because I am, in short, a “Dually.”
You know what to do with that big, fat butt. (Source) (PS: Big butts are frequently an, ahem, asset in aerials, not to mention being apparently prized among male ballet dancers, for whom the ideal butt shape is apparently “square.” Regarding which: huh.)
This is consistent with the way the elastic fits: the top is rather looser than it should be, but the bottom is snug enough to do its job really, really well.
Sizing, then, is more comparable to Capezio’s dance belts, in which I would probably wear a Medium (even though their size chart thinks I’m a Small) if I were to buy another one, than to BodyWrappers, in which I am still a large, but a pretty comfortable large.
Fortunately, my magnificent glutei medii (and also my iliac crests, which are like freaking knives these days, y’all) give sufficient purchase to the bottom 1.5″ or so of elastic.
I mention this for two reasons.
- First, the WM dance belt is not only performing admirably, but is doing so under less-than-ideal circumstances.
- Second, when sizing your own dance belt (and every other thing), it’s worth considering things like the measurement of your hip right around your gluteus medius, which tends to be extremely well-developed in male dancers, especially male ballet dancers (thanks, grand battement!).
This guy is SO not a dancer. (Circle added for clarity. Source: Illustration by Henry Vandyke Carter from Gray’s Anatomy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
So the fit, I think, skews very close to true, with a small caveat for those of us who are pretty freaking lean and yet possessed of ridiculous butt muscles.
It’s probably worth noting that the rise is a bit lower than the BW’s rise. That works just fine for me because of the way I’m put together, but if you have a really long torso (or if you’re just plain tall), the BW belts might be a better fit. For me, though — a smallish person with a moderate torso — the rise is about perfect.
As for the pouch: it’s probably adequate for all but the most ridonculous of pr0n stars.
Function
Holy cats, Batman, this thing FREAKING WORKS.
For a long time, I seriously thought my Capezios were fine. Sure, occasional adjustments were required (note: this may well be a sizing issue; I am more than 4″ smaller waist-wise than I was when I started dancing again) — but, on the whole, I felt like things were, you know, staying put well enough.
Then I got my BW M006, which was revelatory. When it was sitting where it wanted to, NOTHING MOVED. Nothing could move. Which is, in fact, the whole idea: “set it and forget it.”
The only problem was that the M006’s rise meant that it sat at a spot that wasn’t (at the time) terribly comfortable, so I kept adjusting it downward, which compromised its effectiveness. Curiously, losing another inch or so off my waist seems to have made the height of the rise matter a whole heck of a lot less, so go figure.
Enter the WM dance belt: the rise is perfect, and the fit is secure — so secure that “set it and forget it” works just as well in lyra class (IMO, the ultimate test of a dance belt) as it does in ballet (okay, so all those freaking échappés are a close second … no pun intended, but I’ll take credit if it’s on offer).
So, basically, if there’s any wiggle room, the lyra will find it and will adjust your junk for you and your better half will sit there laughing maniacally and saying, “You’re not supposed to use that to hang on to the hoop!”
Or, you know, you’ll just pinch your junk or something, which is at least as unpleasant.
Oh, and then you’ll have to (ONCE AGAIN) adjust yourself in front of 40 girls, even if there are only like 16 people in the studio at that moment and three of them are guys.
WM’s dance belt puts an end to that particular scenario (as long as you remember to sort of shimmy around the family jewels, as one does in such situations — there’s a reason that there are fewer guys than girls in lyra).
Meanwhile, in ballet class, WM’s dance belt eliminates all need for mid-class adjustments. There’s no jeté-ing out the studio door at the end of a grand allegro phrase; no OMFG moments in the middle of warm-up jumps.
Obviously, I can’t speak to durability yet, but at around $25 US, WearMoi’s dance belt doesn’t have to last until you retire to be worth the cost of admission.
TL;DR:
- Fits true to size, with a low rise and moderate pouch width.
- Construction and materials are excellent. Plush elastic is freaking amazing. Dries faster than BW M006/M007, but the pouch and thong aren’t quite as nice.
- Comfort is excellent. M007 may have a slight advantage due to its sleek, smooth fabric and pouch, but the WM belt is still exceptionally nice.
- Functionality is stellar. Set it and forget it, indeed.
8/10: Very Highly Recommended. (Compare 5/10 for Capezio N5930; ~8.5/10 for BW’s M006/M007)
Dually Image:
By user:JD – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6883513
Moar Things
- Decided on very subtle costuming for my ballet/lyra piece for Fall Showcase (which is in September): grey tights, white crepe/gauze/whatever-you-call-it shirt. Ordered said tights and shirt.
Really kind of looking forward to the tights, as I’ve recently figured out that I don’t hate dancing with stuff between my shoes and my feet after all and part of me is like, “YAY, ACTUAL BALLET TIGHTS.” Definitely plan to add suspenders/braces for Lyra purposes, though now I have to figure out where to find said suspenders/braces if they don’t come with the tights (which are the kind that can be used with braces or rolled down a million times).
~
- Hit up Sansha’s New York Store website again. Decided to buy a couple of shirts that were on sale. Checked the sizing chart; nearly had a heart attack about the incredibly-diminutive weight ranges, realized I was looking at the ladies’ chart.
Turns out I’m squarely in the middle of the weight range they predict for guys my height, which makes me a Sansha size 6. But still. Wow. They are definitely thinking Kirov ladies, here. If I was a girl, I’d be an XXL and wouldn’t be able to buy almost anything from Sansha’s website. Bleh.
~
- Ordered another pair of the leather Silhouettes because I think they’re discontinuing them. I haz a sad about that, because they are the BEST SHOES EVER for my particular feet.
Also ordered a pair in white for the Showcase performance.
Got a wild hair and added a pair of the stretch canvas shoes, because at this point I’m like, “Might as well,” and also because I was $9 or something short of the minimum order. Maybe I will love them?
~
- Got two free pairs of tights. None of them were useful for me (all ladies’ styles; insufficiently opaque for men in most applications), so I ordered a couple pair that I think might fit at least one of my friends from class. I figured, what the heck? Might as well be the Free Tights Fairy while I’m being the Buying All the Freaking Shoes In A Panic Fairy.
~
- The ballet part of the piece for Fall Showcase is much better now. I still feel like I should put the tour-jeté sequence back into the second phrase, because at the moment there are two bits that basically run flatly back and forth across the stage (stage L – stage R, then back), which still seems kind of boring.
~
- Discovered that I can do renversé, attitude turns, and the necessary balances (pique arabesque, first arabesque to penché, balance à la seconde from pas de chat Italien) on the mats and on the floor. Also that I make myself straighten up and fly-right when I’m half-assing my turns, which I was totally doing at the beginning of Open Fly tonight, because developing even worse turning habits is the last freaking thing I need to do.
Anyway, I should’ve been in bed a billion years ago, so that’s it for tonight.
Wednesday Class: Body Not So Good Without Brain
I hope I wasn’t a disappointment to l’ancien directeur-artistique today!
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about and applying his note about my supporting leg, and it’s coming along.
That said, I had absolutely no brain this morning, and was having trouble remembering combinations, and instead of just being like, “Meh, whatevs, I’ll do the part I do remember and maybe I’ll catch up,” I got rattled.
So there’s that.
In other news, I went to Ye Olde Local Dance Shoppe today in search of MOAR LEGWARMERS (and maybe some suspendery-tights) and, while I didn’t find any of those, I did come home with a new dance belt.
It’s a WearMoi, and apparently they’ve recently redesigned them. It’s really similar in conception and execution to the BodyWrappers M006/M007 (though it splits the difference in terms of waistband-width, coming in at 3″ instead of 2″ or 4″).
Thus far, it seems pretty legit. It’s going to Trapeze 3 tonight, which is a pretty good trial if you ask me (not quite as good as Lyra or Albrecht’s variation, but still pretty good).
Update: I forgot we had lyra class tonight. The WM belt performed admirably in trap 3 (AKA advanced adventures in knot-tying) and in lyra!
Lyra is a heartless breaker of the dreams of dance belts, so this is no small matter.
That’s it for now. Further update to follow. Full initial review pending a good dance class (maybe Company B tomorrow?).
Choreography: Iterations
On Sunday, I banged out what turned out to be a kind of very rough first draft of the choreography for an upcoming Lyra performance that opens with a bunch of ballet.
I video-ed the initial draft choreography and discovered that, at least for me, video is a really useful tool for the choreographic process. It let me analyze my own dance from an audience perspective (only one: the person sitting at the corner of audience R, heh), which in turn helped me figure out what worked and what needed to change.
Today, I worked the ballet part again, and I think I’ve resolved some of the problems I ran into with the first draft — particularly the excessive repetition and the fact that I’d boringly choreographed everything down the same diagonal and back.
I didn’t record video today, but instead wrote the choreo down by hand. This is progress; I used to have trouble doing that because I couldn’t always figure out what to call intermediate things.
Now I just write “step through in coupé” (or short-hand “step thru coupé) or whatever best describes the action if it doesn’t have a really discrete name.
Also, I no longer get my Eighty-Seven Cardinal Directions of Ballet confused (thanks to Company B), which makes it soooooo much easier to write out the instructions.
I just realized, though, that for some reason I dropped one of my favorite sequences (your traditional:
pique arabesque – chassée – tour jeté – something else
…So maybe I’ll put it back in on the next iteration, with or without the interesting little pivot that kept appending itself to the landing of the tour jeté.
That said, I also added a tombé – pas de bourrée – glissade – Pas de Chat Italien into a balance à la seconde.
~
This iterative process feels very comfortable, which surprises me.
As a choreographer, I’m apparently quite happy to just bang out a very rough initial draft.
By contrast, as a writer, my initial drafts tend to feel pretty finished because I work into the diction and sound and feeling and imagery of the writing so much.
This means that my initial drafts as a writer take foreeeeeeeeevar, while an initial choreographic draft can be accomplished in a few minutes for a short piece (obviously, you’re not going to choreograph a 3-act ballet in 10 minutes, unless each act is like one minute long).
I think we have another Open Fly session tonight, so I might shoot some video of the second draft of my choreography, and possibly also the lyra choreography, if I’m feeling up to it.
Maybe this time I’ll remember to bring an external speaker so I can have video and sound AT THE SAME TIME!!! O.O
I think I will, in time, post my various iterative videos here. I haven’t ported the first two (both first-draft videos, but recorded in two separate phrases) over to the YouTubes yet, though.
~
In other news, yesterday’s rest day went well, and I learned that one of my favorite dancers and instructors is also an incredibly good cook. Like, somehow, in the midst of teaching and rehearsing and generally being amazing, he also found time to make two really good pie crusts from scratch and fill them with amazing savory pies also from scratch.
I already knew that he was a really lovely human being … only, now I’m not so sure that’s accurate.
Specifically I am not entirely sure he’s actually a human being; he might really be a unicorn in elaborate biped drag.
Video Killed The … Oh, Wait
Okay, so I couldn’t really think of a good title for this post. Video hasn’t killed anything in my life recently except my own misconceptions about the progress I’m making.
In the past year, I’ve really been trying to “bust my butt,” ballet-wise: taking class more often, taking actual physical notes, working like crazy on port de bras in the mirror at home, applying things learned in modern or aerials to my ballet training … even looking at my limitations and challenges through different eyes*.
*Maybe through cheetah eyes? Maybe not. Anyway … it’s like:
Okay, so I’ve got huge knees. So what? Nureyev had huge knees.
Okay, so when I’m in demi-pointe, only three toes (and the attendant portion of the ball of my foot) are actually on the ground … so what? I personally know at least two guys who are not only professional dancers, but key members of their respective companies, whose feet are shaped like mine.
Besides, I can physically lift my body off the floor with those three toes. Those are my jumping toes, y’all.
The thing is, where ballet is concerned, the goal-posts move constantly, and sometimes they move really fast. In other words, it’s easy to lose sight of the progress you’re making (especially when you routinely take class with seriously amazing company dancers — which, IMO, you should if you can; it will make you a better dancer).
This is, it turns out, where video can be an ally.
I shot my first bits of ballet video back in December of last year. Even watching them then, I felt like I had so, so very far to go.
I shot my most recent bit of ballet video today, while working on a new piece for Suspend (it’s about half ballet, half ballet-on-the-lyra, heh). I still, of course, feel like I have so, so very far to go: I will feel like that for the rest of my life, because that’s ballet for you.
But I also feel like I have come so, so much further than I would have thought possible in the intervening time.
It’s really, really hard to fathom how much I’ve changed as a dancer in the time that elapsed between those two recordings.
There are still times that I do weird things with my arms. I still have a bad habit of telegraphing the moments when I don’t quite remember what I’m supposed to do next (note to self : STOP THAT, ALREADY).
I still have challenges translating between the Movie-In-My-Head that I create when I’m making dances and the actual dance, because when I’m dancing I lose track of the movie in my head (so then I just wind up reverting to tons of rond de jambes or pique turns or whatevs; lately, attitude turns and renversé are in heavy rotation as well).
But the way I carry myself is surprisingly different. Surprisingly better. My arms kind of know what they’re about. My body isn’t basically a gelatin mold (I’m not talking about fat distribution, BTW — I’m talking about core engagement). My legs seem to more or less understand what’s going on. Everything is more or less on the same page more or less all the way through.
I can almost watch the video I shot today without cringing. I only have to cringe a little**, though I suspect that a year from now I won’t actually even be able to watch it, because when I watch it, some inner part of me will be all like, OMG! HOW COULD YOU HAVE THOUGHT THAT WAS GOOD, YOU TWIT!
**Like: it opens with this developpé, which is in and of itself awkward, because EVERY FREAKING TIME I make adagio dances they open with the same stupid developpé avant en effacé, except when they go croisé instead. Indeed, I am so thorough in this regard that the first partnered adagio I made opens with BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, mirroring one-another >.<
But, anyway, the developpé starts off nicely, and then just above 90 degrees my working leg is like, “Newp, too tired. Hahahahahaha.”
Leg be like: “Okay, so we start with trollface en effacé…”
So. Annoying.
Anyway.
Here’s my point: I think, too often, we don’t feel the progress we’re making in the ballet studio. We notice it when we suddenly develop a skill we didn’t have before (OMG DOUBLE ATTITUDE TURNS!), but the rest of the time we just don’t see it at all.
Ballet makes you weirdly myopic.
You forget how bad your single turns were six months ago. You forget that you didn’t actually have a reliable attitude turn.
You forget that renversé was hard once; that contretemps were just WTF (and definitely not something you could just toss into a variation, like, because); that your brisée was, exactly as its name implies, broken (pro tip: brisée is actually easier if you do it with the prescribed arms … though I could not even remotely begin to explain why). That your beats were, um, beat. That your developpé remained undeveloped. That your extensions were just, like, tensions, really.
You forget that, not all that terribly long ago in the grand scheme of things, you had some kind of crazy mental block about glissade-assemblé and spectacularly wild arms.
Video can help you with that — even if you can’t stand to watch your old videos again. If your brain is anything like mine, the endless blooper reel that is last year’s videos has been seared upon your brain FOREVAR, so you won’t have to watch them again. Video can remind you how far you’ve come***.
***And also that you’re STILL DROPPING YOUR FREAKING ARMS INSTEAD OF COMING THROUGH A PROPER FIRST, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, OMG, I CANNOT WATCH THIS ANYMORE, I’m feeling a little verklempt, talk amongst yourselves, I’ll give you a topic: FREAKING PORT DE BRAS, FOR G-D’S SAKE.
Anyway, at the end of the day, this all amounts to one thing: MOAR MOTIVATION (which, to be fair, isn’t a thing I really lack, where dancing is concerned).
Not to say that I’m not going to enjoy my week with two rest days (because it’s now been two solid weeks since I’ve taken a rest day, even though I was like I AM NOT DANCING ON MONDAY. OKAY, SO THEN NOT ON THURSDAY. FRIDAY? NO, MUST DANCE FRIDAY; EF IS TEACHING …Crap. It’s Sunday already, isn’t it?).
But I’m looking forward to further pursuing those elusive goalposts.
They’re not going to catch themselves, after all.
danseur ignoble 